Google Hangouts 2.0 Arrives Fully Loaded for iPad Use

Update includes animated stickers that “help you share exactly how you’re feeling”

Google Hangouts video call example

Hangouts, the Google-developed messaging app that lets you send and receive messages with photos and videos and even make free video calls with multiple people at once, just got a whole lot better!

Google Hangouts has never been quite a friend of the iPad but, starting with version 2.0.0, all that is changing. Hangouts is now a fully-supported, fully-compatible, and fully-loaded native iPad application that includes picture-in-picture video calling.

If you own both an iPhone and an iPad, you’ll soon know the difference between making a video call on a 4-inch screen and having a group video call convo on a 10-inch Retina display.

Also included in this exciting new update are animated stickers “that help you share exactly how you’re feeling,” the ability to record and send video messages up to 10 seconds long, the ability to send a map of your current location, and iOS 7 optimizations (both graphically and under the hood).

It goes without saying that this is the biggest Hangouts update since the app’s inception, so it’s well worth your attention if you’re a fan of Google’s social tools. Download Hangouts 2.0.0 on your iDevice (iOS 6 required), be it an iPhone or an iPad, and enjoy!